Pro-Putin candidates suffer losses in Moscow elections

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Pro-Kremlin candidates have suffered losses in local elections in Moscow as Vladimir Putins biggest critic hailed the success of his campaign to encourage strategic voting.

The election was closely watched by both sides following a summer of protests in the Russian capital against the Kremlins refusal to allow candidates allied with opposition leader Alexei Navalny on to the ballot.

According to Russian media reports the Kremlin banned opposition candidates after internal polling indicated they would win at least nine seats. While the city council has few powers, analysts say the Kremlin was reluctant to allow Navalnys allies a foothold on the electoral ladder ahead of far more significant parliamentary polls due in 2021.

Navalny, 43, portrayed the city council elections as a referendum on Putin and the United Russia party that backs the president. He appealed to voters to cast their ballots for United Russias strongest challengers, even if they represented political parties that they would not normally vote for, such as the Communists.

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Who is Alexei Navalny?

He started out as a Russian nationalist, but emerged as the main leader of Russia’s democratic opposition during the wave of protests that led up to the 2012 presidential election, and has since been a constant thorn in the Kremlins side.

Navalny is barred from appearing on state television, but has used social media to his advantage. A 2017 documentary accusing the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, of corruption received more than 30m views on YouTube within two months of release.

He has been repeatedly arrested and jailed by the authorities. The European court of human rights ruled that Russia violated Navalny’s rights by holding him under house arrest in 2014. Election officials formally barred him from running for president in 2018 due to an embezzlement conviction that he claims was politically motivated. Navalny told the commission its decision would be a vote not against me, but against 16,000 people who have nominated me, against 200,000 volunteers who have been canvassing for me.

His main strength in opposition has been in bringing large numbers of protesters out on to Russia’s streets. At times, Navalny has seemed to find short spells in jail an energising rather than demoralising experience. There were some others in the jail, and for all of them it was their first protest in their lives,” he once said. “When they saw me walking past, they were calling out, Whens the next protest? They werent asking if there would be one, they wanted to know when.

Photograph: Pavel Golovkin/AP

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Although United Russia retained its majority in Moscow after Sundays vote, its share of seats on the 45-seat city council was slashed from 40 to 25. The Communist party took 13 seats, up from five last time, while the A Just Russia party won three seats. Both parties are widely seen as part of the Kremlins loyal opposition.

All four candidates from Yabloko, Russias oldest liberal party, won their districts. Yabloko was the only genuinely independent party allowed on the ballot in Moscow.

United Russias candidates all ran as nominal independents in an apparent attempt to distance themselves from their increasingly unpopular party. An opinion poll published before the election by an independent thinktank indicated that it was backed by just 11% of voters in Moscow. The state-run pollster said in April that Putins party was backed by 22% of voters in the Russian capital.